Metal Heart
by iridescentZEN
Summary: Without all the people, the church is near silent and the religious icons that were moments ago so warm and welcoming now seem to mock her, their eyes accusing and their lips slanted as though in a sneer of contempt.
1. Flesh and Blood

This story is a sequel to my M rated fiction, "Halo of Madness." I don't know why I am prone to chapters lately. I am usually a one-shot kind of gal.

This fic is a WIP that will be finished.

I'd like to extend a hearty thank you to LJ1983 for her thoughts concerning this fic.

This fic is Kirsty/Pinhead and is pretty dark in places. I suspect you wouldn't be hanging around these parts if you weren't already a fan of the movie and thus know what it involves.

Please review! I crave reviews like drugs!

"I wish I wasn't flesh and blood. I would not be scared," ~ Garbage, "Metal Heart"

The church fills slowly with patrons. Kirsty Cotton has been sitting on the pew in the second row for twenty minutes already. Observing others kneeling and crossing themselves before they sat, she had done the same if only to blend in. It unnerved her that when her hand moved from her forehead to mid-sternum then right to left across her chest that she broke out into a sweat and felt suddenly nauseous.

It must be in her head, she figures, because for the first time in months she feels a sense of security though she knows deep down that there is nowhere safe for her. As time ticks by, the church becomes packed with people. The air turns hot in that way that any gathering does with too many people in too small of a space. It does not go unnoticed that whenever a person veers in her direction to sit beside her they change course as though directed by some unseen force. The place is packed but she sits utterly alone on an otherwise empty pew.

Kirsty sits in a zombie state, her mind not focusing on the prayers as much as the fact that the Priest can't stop staring at her. His words start to jumble as though he is nervous, but he resolutely continues the mass. The donation baskets make their way around the church, because Jesus needs money, and Kirsty dutifully places ten dollars in each time it makes its way to her.

Soon, the mass is over and people get up quickly, eager to get on with their regular Sunday. They want to go home and watch football and cook on a grill.

She is rooted to her spot, even when the place clears out. The stained glass windows are beautiful to look at, and Kirsty could get lost for hours just on the colors used alone. Without all the people, the church is near silent and the religious icons that were moments ago so warm and welcoming now seem to mock her, their eyes accusing and their lips slanted as though in a sneer of contempt.

The Priest makes his way to her rather cautiously, like a tiger trainer approaching a rogue big cat. "I'm Father Timothy O'Neill. And you are?" He offers her his hand, which she takes without hesitation.

"Kirsty Cotton," she replies, purposefully having dropped her married name as soon as legally possible lest it leave its lingering smell behind like a scared skunk.

The Father doesn't pull any punches. "You don't belong here," he says, not unkindly.

"Why?" she asks innocently.

The old man scrutinizes her, staring deep into her eyes. "You know why."

Frustrated and sad, she asks, "Can't I repent? Doesn't God forgive all his children?"

"I don't normally say this, Ms. Cotton, but your fate was written long ago. You are marked, cast out of paradise."

Immediately she thinks of the black, circular scar that makes up most of the flesh on her right shoulder._ Never piss off a demon_, she thinks. "So what … just accept it?" she asks, her voice wavering with fear for her eternal soul.

"Don't act innocent!" the Priest admonishes, the kindness leaving his voice entirely. "You are so far from innocent that if my flesh could crawl right off my bones it would do so to be away from the darkness that radiates from you," he says with conviction, his eyes flashing with disapproval.

Kirsty gasps at his tone, her eyes instantly welling with tears. This is not what she wanted out of life. She struggled for years to be normal, for things to be okay.

Things were supposed to get better!

The Priest isn't done, his face turning red with indignation and his breath hot on Kirsty's face, "You spread your legs for a demon you summoned. You carry his abomination in your cursed womb. You stink of rotten flesh and souls you reaped upon your own volition."

All the blood drains from Kirsty's face, leaving her skin ashen and sickly looking. "You're saying that I'm pregnant?" Her brown eyes are wide with shock as she asks the question, hoping not to hear an affirmation from between the Father's saintly lips. "How could you possibly _know that_? How could you know _any_ of that?"

"God knows all, Ms. Cotton," the Priest says, inching away from her.

She grabs the Priest's wrist, her hold tight with concern. "Father, is this baby evil?"

The priest looks pointedly at her grip on his wrist. "You're hurting me."

Kirsty instantly lets go, her jaw dropping slightly with surprise at her own strength. "I'm … I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you." She averts her gaze from the Priest's probing hazel eyes, ashamed that he knows her secrets and knew them the moment he saw her. "I'll leave."

"You will have to go to term, Ms. Cotton. People will die if you don't accept the gift that evil has given to you," he warns.

Kirsty closes her eyes in an attempt to steady a world that seems to have tilted on its axis. "And when the baby is born, Father? What then?"

The Priest looks deep in thought before uttering, "Pray."

* * *

This has to be a dream, Kirsty thinks, as she opens her eyes to a hazy blue atmosphere, chains clinking against one another loudly.

The studded demon smiles, his hands reaching outward. "Ah," he says, looking strangely alive, black eyes meeting the baby boy's blue eyes.

The baby is content, swathed in a blanket, a small blue hat upon his head, snuggled in Kirsty's arms. Kirsty is trapped, held back by iron chains with deadly hooks that have yet to pierce her skin. She is held tight like a mouse in the unhinged jaw of a snake but her prison is made of chain link.

The paleness of the demon's face is startling against the silver of the pins driven into his flesh. He stares at the baby with all the joy of a new father, but it is all wrong. It is all _totally_ wrong. She half expects to find him passing out, "It's a boy!" cigars to his cenobite brethren.

"Come to daddy," he says mocking her with her Uncle Frank's favorite line, using his chains to take the baby from her arms. The chains cradle the baby in metal chain link, gliding him across the air like a swing until the baby sits in the crook of his arm, surrounded by the scent of leather and vanilla.

Once the baby is in the demon's hands, no time is wasted.

The chains dance around Kirsty like trained cobras ready to strike. Then they do, their metal hooked tips piercing her flesh. She screams until a hook slices across her throat, blood gushing out of the wound like a fountain. The hot surge of life fluid runs over her mutilated form, pouring from wounds all over her body before pooling on the cement floor beneath her. The chains rip her to bits and pieces, for a moment giving the illusion that she is a broken marionette, wooden limbs about to fall from string.

All that is left where she once stood is meat. Bits of mangled flesh in various sizes and patterns merge with bone and viscera swaying from chains looking like a wind chime on Hell's front porch.

The worst part is that Kirsty is still there, still aware of everything around her, watching from her two eyes that were left whole but independent of one another. The right eye is swaying from a hook and the left eye is looking up from the ground. She is a prime example of a cubist painting, her flesh torn apart then reconstructed in a way that is not normal.

The pinned demon laughs, deep from his belly and shows the baby boy what is left of his mother. "Is she not the most beautiful sight you have ever seen?" He turns the baby to her, allowing her to see that the child's bright blue eyes have now turned coal black.

There is a flash and suddenly Kirsty is whole again and standing without the baby in front of her nightmare lover. He is close enough that she feels the frosty air of his breath against her face.

She is aware enough even in her dream state to know that this meeting has turned very real.

The demon says nothing, but invades her personal space and lifts her white t-shirt to just below her breasts. Kirsty's body tingles as it remembers his touch and she lets out a gasp that is half-anticipation half-disgust.

Slowly, he moves his pale hand to her stomach, the black lace around his index and pinkie finger strangely soft against her skin. He fans his hand out over her flesh and she suddenly hears the fast, healthy heart beat of her child that echoes her own slower beat.

The smile that graces Xipe Totec's face can only be described as wicked; his black eyes are alight with a sparkle that makes them look like polished obsidian. His expression is triumphant. He has known since conception that his seed had taken hold, further tangling the web of suffering he's spun around Kirsty Cotton for the last fifteen years.

"Are you afraid that you carry a harbinger of doom?" he asks, the chains around them clinking loudly against one another.

Kirsty swallows the lump forming in her throat, her dark brown eyes closing for a moment as if she is managing her fear. "Yes," she answers honestly.

He considers this, his head tilted slightly to the side. "The baby is human. You will nourish him in your womb then at your breast until you are no longer needed. Then you will open the box and join me."

"Is that some kind of twisted marriage proposal?" Kirsty's eyes dart back and forth, not trusting the situation she is in. It would be all too easy for one of his minions to show up beside her or behind her when she least expects it.

"I was not asking you, I was telling you! You will open the box and you will be mine!" he says, his voice booming through her like she is standing in front of speakers at a rock concert.

She jumps back, aroused and startled. "No!" she denies furiously. "I'm not and I never will be!"

"Poor Kirsty," he sneers, "men only hurt you then leave. Daddy was killed by his own brother for his flesh, in denial of it even as he lay choking on his last breath. Uncle Frank –"

"Don't say it!" Kirsty half warns, half sobs. She looks distraught. "Please, don't say it."

"—beat you, molested you," the demon cocks his head to the left as though appraising her, "raped you." His face moves even closer to hers and she can feel the cold metal of the studs that pierce his flesh digging against the flesh of her cheek. "Let us not forget your loving husband, so eager to rob you of your breath for the paltriest of human vices: money."

Kirsty can't control the flow of tears suddenly falling from her eyes. "I keep trying to forget him," she informs the demon with a small shrug of her shoulders.

"Of that, I am aware. Rest assured that he wishes that he could forget you as well." He modulates his voice to Elliot Spencer's gentle English accent, "Give in to your dark side, Kirsty. We will be here waiting until you do."

Kirsty wakes up drenched in sweat, grabbing the small trash bin beside her bed and vomits until there is nothing left inside her but the ache of muscles trying to force something from nothing.

The nightmare felt so real. She wants to make sure she's not hamburger, but she doesn't have the strength after throwing up to do anything other than cry.

The pregnancy was confirmed with store bought tests, and then later by her gynecologist. She is at thirteen weeks and now has a regular obstetrician. So far, everything is in range and normal. As normal as could be considering she was knocked up by a demon.

Why can't anything in her life be normal?

Why couldn't this baby be Trevor's?

Kirsty wants to lie to herself and imagine that it is Trevor's, but she knows better. Before the box was opened, their marriage was in jeopardy. They hadn't had sex in months. The constant arguing had worn them down. She was foolish enough to believe things would be different on the night of their wedding anniversary. She made up her mind that if he wanted to bang the slut next door, she didn't care. She wasn't going to keep him on a short leash. She would just ignore it, because he wouldn't leave her for any of them, she was still his Queen Bee and he still loved her.

Tears flow from Kirsty's eyes as she considers her thoughts. Trevor didn't love her enough. Had he ever loved her? He's in his own Hell now, because she loved him. She loved him so much that when he gift wrapped the puzzle box and gave it to her like the most precious of gifts knowing full well what evil lurked inside, he might as well have punched through her ribs and pried her still-beating heart from her body with his greedy, piggish hands like Julia did to Uncle Frank.

Kirsty hates that Trevor still has the power to hurt her even though he's dead.

End, Part I


	2. Cross the Line

A/N: Here is the second chapter of Metal Heart. Please review! My thanks to the people who reviewed on the first chapter. Some of you are anonymous so I can't reply personally, but I still thank you.

Part II, "Cross the Line"

The days merge together but the nights are exhausting. She wants to sleep and have normal dreams. She wants to take her meds and fall into an Ambien induced slumber, dreamless and forced. The pinned demon leaves her alone most nights, but she can feel him there much more acutely than she could before she got pregnant. Even in her waking moments she feels his presence around her, hovering like a hunter waiting for the deer to drop its guard and come closer.

Kirsty doesn't want to drop her guard. Instead she quits her job at an inbound call center, and focuses all of her attention on theology. At five months along, it is not enough that her ultrasounds show a completely normal, male human fetus. She is still frightened both for herself and for her son. She visits the churches of Methodists, Protestants, Catholics, Christians, Episcopalians and Lutherans. After all attempts end the way her first visit to a Church did, she fans out and visits Temples and Mosques looking for answers. Once she even let a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses into her small apartment, at a loss when they scrambled out before she could put a kettle of water on the stove for some tea.

Eventually, Kirsty dips into her tainted inheritance to purchase a small home for herself and her child. It has two bedrooms and is situated in a modest, low-crime neighborhood with great schools. Her neighbors welcome her as she appears vulnerable with her baby bump and no wedding ring on her finger. They fish for gossip, throwing worms out to the water in hopes that they will catch a big one, but Kirsty is tight-lipped when it comes to her personal life and they leave disappointed with the same amount of information they had coming in.

The largest motivator for her moving to this neighborhood was their neighborhood watch. Lately, Kirsty has noticed that there has been an increase of shady characters who are watching her, following her every move. Some remind her all too much of a homeless man who liked to dine on pet store crickets. It wouldn't surprise her in the least if the box had watch dogs on her. Not only is she still in possession of a lament configuration, she is also currently pregnant with a cenobite's child. That has to raise some flags somewhere.

The neighborhood watch has Kirsty feeling safe until she starts to get tribute from the dark masses. They start out small enough: letters and then boxes … dripping with blood like packages of meat from a butcher. She is not entirely sure why the mail carrier continues to deliver them but every day she gets rancid letters and packages with small bits of flesh that have her puking in her mouth before she can make it to the bathroom.

Finally, she gets a post office box and lets them deal with it.

Kirsty opens the front door for her early morning walk and finds a slaughtered pigeon on her porch, the slice across its throat eerily similar to the one across her own in her dreams. She hopes it's a singular event but every day there is a new dead bird. She finds an eviscerated red-bellied wood pecker, goldfinches without heads, a blue jay with mangled limbs and a perfectly skinned northern cardinal, its glorious red feathers torn apart as though done by the chains of the puzzle box itself.

Dorothy, her 86 year-old neighbor directly across the street shakes her head and watches Kirsty from her window during her morning routine of removing bird corpses and hosing down her porch.

Kirsty has the corpse removal down to an art. It never takes her more than five minutes to erase any evidence of bird murder, but it bothers her that she can feel various sets of eyes on her while she does it every morning.

In her sixth month of pregnancy the murdered birds become murdered squirrels, chipmunks and opossums with each mammal death more hideous and detailed than the first. The neighborhood watch focuses entirely on her home and what they think is a malicious ex-boyfriend that is stalking her, but they never catch anyone. She knew they wouldn't the entire time, but their hearts are in the right place. She goes to their meetings and brings cookies and coffee, blending in effortlessly without really blending in at all. At the very least, she feels a little less lonely surrounded by the small community that has accepted her darkness and all.

One morning during her seventh month of pregnancy Kirsty opens the door to a large buck, its antlers fully grown, gargling on its dying breath on the tar of her driveway that is awash with puddles of blood. She stays with it while it dies, a comforting hand on the arch of its neck, the other rubbing the soft fluff of fur on its head and between its wide set eyes, while nosy neighbors come out of their houses to gawk at the scene while tears roll down her face. Kirsty is exposed there, on her driveway, clad only in a tank top and a pair of sleep shorts, covered in blood. The black, circular scar on her shoulder is in full view. She can feel their eyes on her, scrutinizing.

Kirsty is aware that she is giving this wild animal more compassion in her touch than she did the five people she killed.

Someone calls the cops; she doesn't know who. The police tell her the buck was probably shot by a hunter in the woods by the highway nearby. She hears the gossiping whispers plainly while trying to wipe her tears with the backs of her hands.

_It has to be her stalker ex-boyfriend. Do you see that scar? Domestic violence! He probably stabbed her. Poor thing! _

_He must have beaten her within an inch of her life._

_Why isn't she running and hiding again?_

_You know how it is. They always find them. It's sick. _

"The show is over!" Kirsty yells at them, her fright and discomfort clear for all to see. "Go home!"

The crowd begins to disperse, huffs of indignation clearly heard. She narrows her gaze and gives them her best stink-eye as they leave. Soon, they are all gone back to their houses to gossip about her more or to watch daytime TV. Only a little boy stays behind. He looks roughly three or four and should definitely not be there alone.

Kirsty sniffs a little, her tears finally drying. "Where do you live?"

The little boy points to a few houses down, his golden hair glinting in the sunlight. The home is a nice light blue cottage with bright yellow shutters.

"Your mommy misses you. You should go home," she tells him, concerned.

The boy shakes his head back and forth. "No." He approaches her slowly; his dark brown eyes an echo of her own. When he is in front of her, she can see there is slight bruising around his neck as though he's been abused recently.

Before she can stop him, he places both of his little hands on her baby bump, heedless of the deer blood staining her shirt. "Baby nice," he says. "Don't worry."

He smiles at her, a beautiful soul and she finds herself returning it. It's the first genuine smile she's given since Trevor gave her the box.

"Thank you, baby," she says earnestly.

"Tommy!" she hears a disgruntled voice yell from the light blue house.

Tommy immediately responds to the name, already in motion to sprint back home. He takes a final look back, meeting and holding her gaze before he tells her, "Sad for you!"

The smile drops from Kirsty's face, replaced by a frown as she is unsure what his ominous final words mean.

Later one of her neighbors informs her that no one has lived in that light blue house for years. Not since a little boy and his mother were murdered in it.

* * *

Month eight Kirsty sleeps fitfully when she can. More often than not she sleeps for an hour and is up for five. She gives in and gets a roommate, someone she can feel safe with. His name is Vincent, and he is a former Marine. He doesn't ask about the low rent she's charging and he doesn't judge when she wakes up screaming every night.

They settle together nicely, comfortably.

After two weeks of living there, Vincent sees the scar on her shoulder one day and his thick black eyebrows rise warily. "Who are you running from, Kirsty?"

She laughs lightly. "God," she answers, finding it more than ironic that God is actually running from her.

Vincent's fingers run over the scar, at first methodically as though feeling every nook and cranny, but then it starts to become a sensual caress. Kirsty tenses immediately, not understanding this new dynamic in their relationship.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Kirsty asks him, staring into his dark blue eyes. She has never been one to mince words.

"Worshiping you," he says reverently, his hand cupping her breast through her thin black tank top.

Kirsty's heart races at the unexpected and unwanted touch. She pushes him away with all her might, and he hits the wall with a thud, an expression of surprise at her display of strength flitting across his face. "Get out!" she demands.

This is what she gets for getting a roommate off of _craigslist_.

"What?" he sneers at her, his face contorting with rage that had gone previously unnoticed, "You haven't liked my gifts, Priestess?"

"Don't call me that!" she exclaims, backing away from him with something akin to terror.

"Why? I've done my research. You are the black Priestess. You carry _his_ child," he moves into her personal space, lifting her shirt and rubbing the bare flesh of her stomach as though he has the _right to do so_. "A fitting sacrifice would be to cut open your womb, rip the baby right out of you and then stab you in your cold, cold heart. It is cold, right Kirsty?"

Vincent smiles at her horror, at the way her flesh breaks out in goose bumps at his touch. "I used to think," he tells her in a hushed tone as though he is sharing a secret, "that in war I had been the closest to death and to Hell as possible and then I met you."

Vincent has one hand on her belly and the other on her cheek. "Is it true?" he asks with child-like delight. "Is it true that when you saw your father's corpse it was still smoldering like a lit cigarette?" She cries out at his imagery, her mind being assaulted with past trauma. It doesn't stop his line of questioning. "Is it true that you fucked the priest to save yourself? Killed five people to seal the deal?"

Kirsty stays quiet, backed against the pale yellow wall in her kitchen caught in the web of Vincent's treachery.

"I know you did, you little bitch. You killed my sister, Sage. She was one of the five people you murdered. You remember her, right? She was the massage therapist you ice picked."

"You don't have an accent," Kirsty says a moment later. "She had an accent. Fuck!" Kirsty exclaims, knowing that she is in extreme danger. No one understands revenge as a motive more than her and now she is up against a marine that has a foot and a half height and over a hundred pounds of weight on her. She knew a roommate had been a bad idea!

"She fucked my husband!" Kirsty says as though that gave her a free pass to murder the woman.

"Oh, poor you Kirsty Cotton, I'm playing the world's smallest violin for you. Did it ever occur to you that maybe she didn't even know your sleazy husband was married?"

Kirsty bares her teeth at him. "She knew. There were videos. She fucked my husband in my home! On my couch, in my shower and in my bed! She fucked him in front of our wedding photos and he whispered in her ear that he loved fucking her. If there's one thing I'm certain of, it's that your sister _had it coming_!"

"Bitch, Sage had to pay because of your husband's actions. Your husband had it coming. Not her!" he bellows, backhanding Kirsty so hard she loses her footing and falls to her knees, her lip split and bleeding from the top and bottom.

He shakes his head at her and paces back and forth. "It doesn't matter. I'm going to give you to him. I'm going to offer you up on a silver fucking platter like a prized turkey at Thanksgiving Dinner."

Kirsty is still dazed by the slap, but she watches warily as he digs in his khaki messenger bag that was lying on the kitchen table and produces a puzzle box.

He throws it at her. "Open it!" he demands.

"No!" she says, petulance coloring her tone. She throws it back at him. "I won't!"

Vincent shrugs his shoulders and starts solving the puzzle himself. It takes a few times but eventually the tolling bell echoes in their ears. The crazy, saccharine tune begins playing, foreshadowing the cenobites arrival.

Kirsty's heart beats frantically at the sound and the baby kicks, light flutters as her son reacts to the adrenaline pumping through her veins.

The walls break apart, exposing the inner workings of their construction. Light bulbs burst in their sockets and the temperature lowers by at least fifteen degrees. Her son kicks from his safety in the womb, harder than she has felt so far as though reacting to the precursors of his father's arrival.

Kirsty brings her right hand up to her stomach and places it on her flesh protectively. It might make her look weak and vulnerable, but her instinct to see no harm to her baby is in her DNA.

When the pinned demon makes his entrance he only has eyes for Kirsty.

"Kirsty," he says, as though her name is a prayer.

There are other cenobites, flanking out to provide assistance should one of them decide to run. The one with the chattering teeth hovers nearby, a large axe, brightly polished and hanging from a chain on his leather belt, glints dangerously in the blue hue of their dimension. It looks strangely ornate and ceremonial to her. She hopes that has no special meaning.

There is a cenobite, a tall man who has a blind fold across his eyes and mouth, his entire head wrapped with barbed wire, his leather outfit similar to Pinhead's but not as intricate or woven into his flesh. There are two that are connected as though Siamese twins, their bodies seemingly sewn to one another through a diamond of skin. Their walk is stiff and difficult, but they hover around as one entity and Kirsty warily keeps her distance from them all.

The thud of Vincent landing on his knees at the demon's feet instantly has Xipe Totec's attention.

"What is this?" he asks his voice tinged with irritation.

"I brought her for you, dark lord. I brought Kirsty Cotton for Leviathan so that she can fulfill her destiny. Take her and give me back my sister, my Sage." Vincent rambles, genuflecting at the demon's feet.

Pinhead's eyes narrow slightly. "That is not how this works. You opened the box, we came … for _you_."

The bell tolls again, ominous and loud like thunder. The atmosphere turns even more inhospitable than it was moments before.

"What? No. I brought her! Her! She's the one. The one that got away, the one that carries your heir. I'm trading HER for my sister!" Vincent exclaims, his eyes wild like a rabid squirrel.

The demon snarls. "Enough! When Kirsty Cotton is taken it will be willingly and not dropped off at our door like an orphaned infant! I will keep your hand alive, skin it and keep it in a bucket of salt so that your nerve endings will be on fire for eternity for daring to mark such exquisite flesh as hers."

"What?" Vincent asks, shaking his head in confusion. "The whispers, they say it. They say you want her and her only. The darkness, the masses, the blood … it's all her! It's all supposed to be her."

Vincent grabs his KBar from its sheath at his waist as he realizes his mistake. Kirsty Cotton is not just a sacrifice, and the demon can't be bought with her. He holds the military knife it his hand, the sharp edge sparkling in a blue hue. He gestures with it to Kirsty with the handle pointed toward her.

"I made a mistake, Priestess. Kill me. Kill me now. It would be my honor. Let me be with Sage forever," he states, his eyes alight with a certain type of crazy Kirsty has never been witness to before.

Pinhead waits for her response, but she only stares at Vincent with her jaw dropped slightly, her breathing hard. Finally, she says, "I'm not doing that. There's no way I'm doing that!"

Vincent's eyes are wide, his expression frantic. "Please!" he begs. "Please! You have to!"

He grabs her hand in his and closes it around the handle of the KBar. Before she can react, he plunges the knife straight into his heart with all his force, taking her along for the ride, a murder by proxy.

"No!" she says, her voice trembling with dismay. "No! This is not happening!"

Vincent's life's blood drains out and splashes over his hand, then seeps through to hers coating her hands in red before dripping to the floor.

Pinhead watches, expressionless.

"Pitiful," he says after a moment. Slowly, he stalks towards Kirsty, invading her personal space. "He was right about one thing, _Priestess_," he informs her.

The cenobites flank Kirsty on both sides, unmoving and awaiting a command from their leader. "No," she whispers. "You're lying! I'm not a priestess of anything!"

"I am not one of your lovers who will speak to you in lies cocooned in lies. You were anointed with the oil of your flesh the moment you solved the box," he tells her.

Kirsty doesn't scream at him to go away, instead she cries while he watches. She wipes at her tears with blood soaked hands. "It's a waste of good suffering, I know," she says as he simply watches her with dark eyes. "You have been manipulating my life from the day I opened the puzzle box, haven't you?"

"I exploit nothing that does not wish to be exploited," he answers cryptically.

"You have saved me more than once. I know you said it wasn't free … but you saved my life. Why do you keep saving me if you want to kill me?"

"This is not death," he explains, his arm fanning out to his surroundings in a regal gesture, "This … is freedom."

Kirsty is left in her cheery kitchen minus her roommate, staring at her wall and pondering the demon's words.

Freedom is starting to look appealing.

End, Part II "Cross the Line"


	3. My Sweet Lord

A/N: Sorry about the length of time between updates. This chapter doesn't have much action in it. I'm saving it for the last one. Originally, I intended this to be a 3 chapter story. I'm surprised it has gone beyond that. Please review. It makes my day!

Part III, "My Sweet Lord"

Kirsty has strangers surrounding her while in labor. The nurses cluck and gossip not so subtlety about how sad it is that she is so utterly alone while bringing a new life into the world. _Bitch_, she thinks, every time she has to see one of their faces.

After nearly eight hours in labor, she is exhausted. Closing her eyes for just a second, she is startled awake by the sound of the pinned demon's voice.

"There is no greater suffering than this," he tells her sagely from the shadows of the room.

No one else can see him, her sweet lord. She knows it, and doesn't bother to respond. The last thing she needs is her baby being taken from her because they think she's a total nut job. It doesn't help that she has a stay at The Channard Institute on her medical records or the string of headshrinkers she has been seeing ever since.

"Your father struggles against his bonds in Hell, so great is his despair at what you have done," he continues, nonplussed when she graces him with one of her nastiest looks. She hates when he brings up her father.

"You're almost there, Kirsty. On the next contraction, push!" the doctor tells her. She hears his voice as though he is far away, despite the fact that he is directly in front of her and between her legs.

Kirsty screams, a loud, piercing scream as she brings her son into the world.

The demon has a strange look on his face; he is almost bewildered by the spectacle of life when he is exclusively surrounded by suffering and death in his own dimension. There is a re-birth if Leviathan sees fit, but it is not the same.

"It's a boy!" one of the nurses says with excitement.

The sound of her son's hearty cry is loud in Kirsty's ears and she cries with him, exhaustion battling with her innate desire to hold her baby and reassure herself that he is okay. A nurse clamps the umbilical cord and that is when the world seems to change before Kirsty's very eyes.

The baby blue walls of the hospital room turn to cement, the bright light dimming to an unnatural blue hue. Her IV turns red with her blood traveling from the crook of her arm through the line in reverse shooting back into the bag before it bursts and splatters everywhere. Her doctor instantly becomes the chattering cenobite dressed in scrubs, a stethoscope hanging around his neck.

The nurses turn into two female cenobites she has never seen before. Their eyes are sewn shut, their bald heads etched as though brushed back with razor blades from the forehead to the middle of their heads where a small patch of hair is banded and sticking up in the style of a sumo wrestler. The bones in their faces look wrong as though they have been broken and elongated, shaped to fit someone's image. The symbols from the box are gouged into the flesh of their cheeks and look fresh and wet serving only to high light the fact that neither has ears. Both have wires running from their chins to their chest, anchoring skin to skin and when they lick their lips their tongues are long and reptilian.

The three cenobites fan out around Kirsty's bedside, the chattering one holding a wicked looking machete, the women undulating in rhythm to a song only they can hear.

They stand around her bed waiting for a word from their leader.

One of the cenobite nurses holds the baby in her arms, undeterred by his crying.

The pinned demon stands proud; He approaches the woman he considers his and their offspring. He is very much the king of his own jungle, moving with the grace of a lion. When he finally reaches her, he ignores the air which is tense with her fear and the echo of her rapidly beating heart. His fingers move without hesitation to a six inch sickle hanging from his tool belt.

It is perfect for the job.

The sickle shines bright and strangely clean in what light is left in the room. Kirsty doesn't say anything, merely watches while he holds the weapon in his hand and makes his way even closer.

"His name is Jacob," she offers as an olive branch, hoping that he is there for the reason she thinks he is there.

"A fine name, but that is not why I am here. It is the right of the father to cut the cord," he states though it appears that he is holding back as though waiting for permission.

Kirsty nods her head, and watches as the female cenobite holds the baby out toward Pinhead. He is her child's father, and she can't turn him away no matter how frightened she is.

The demon touches the baby's head from forehead to chin, before bringing the sickle to the cord. With a quick slash, the umbilical cord is separated and the hospital room instantly returns to Kirsty's reality.

It's a jarring change. She finds that she is panting quite heavily and that her blood pressure has sky rocketed. The nurses look concerned, but a moment later she stabilizes and they relax.

A nurse places baby Jacob on Kirsty's chest.

She looks at him, awed by the tiny human in her arms. "You're an angel," she tells him softly.

It feels like only a moment before the nurse takes the baby to clean him and Apgar test him.

No one mentions the fact that the cord seemed to have mysteriously cut itself.

Kirsty finds herself uncontrollably sobbing. Attempting to be strong, she wipes her tears away. She wishes more than anything that her dad was alive and well sitting in the waiting room, a proud, bragging grandfather handing out cigars to a large circle of friends; she wishes that she had a loving husband holding her hand, making her family complete.

Inside Kirsty is still crying. She cries for her son and for the mothers of the five people whose lives she cut short to save herself.

* * *

Months go by and Kirsty is exhausted beyond belief. Taking care of an infant by herself is grueling. Surprisingly she has some relief in the form of her neighbors who have rallied around her for reasons unknown. She is thankful for the extra help though wary of their motives.

Dorothy, now a spry 87-years-old, is all too willing to look after Jacob with her 60-year-old daughter, Melody.

Kirsty finds herself jealous at times of the relationship the mother and daughter share. Her own mother died when she was only nine years old. Kirsty had been sitting at the kitchen table while her mother was elbow deep in water, washing dishes that were dirtied after dinner.

Kirsty was in the middle of doing her homework when her mother fell suddenly to the floor, blood trickling from her nose. Kirsty's scream of alarm had her dad rushing from his den to see what was wrong.

It was already too late.

There was nothing they could do. Her mother had a ruptured aneurysm in her brain, which caused a stroke severe enough that it took her life. It was a pivotal moment in Kirsty's life, starting a downward spiral of misery that seemed never ending.

Kirsty is already older now than her mother was when she died.

She tries not to dwell on such things, but with a new life staring her in her eyes every day Kirsty finds herself thinking back to her own parents much more than usual.

Jacob is wonderful. Kirsty feels lucky to have such a great son, especially considering the circumstances of his conception. He looks like her; his hair is a wild mop of dark brown curls, the line of his nose a perfect replica of her own. It's when looking into his eyes that are a light powder blue which seem to smile that she sees Captain Elliot Spencer. Before his curiosity and dark path had him sitting in a bunker with a puzzle box, did his eyes smile like this? She wonders.

With every first in Jacob's life, Kirsty feels the burden of guilt pushing down on her shoulders. With his first smile, so serene and angelic, she thinks of Gwen. Trevor's boss begged and screamed for her life, but Kirsty only tightened the plastic bag around the woman's throat, trying not to look at the face of the pinned cenobite standing in front of her watching like a proud daddy teaching his baby girl to learn how to ride a bike.

It was disturbing how good it felt to make someone who wronged her pay.

Revenge has always been her Achilles Heel.

When Jacob learns to raise his head and chest while on his belly, Kirsty thinks of Trevor's friend Bret, a man so motivated by greed he was more than willing to kill his co-worker's wife for a share of tainted fortune. He plotted her death as much as she plotted his. She got him in the alley behind his apartment. Her fingers slid effortlessly over the puzzle box and when the demon was there she wasted no time.

She made sure that Bret was looking into her eyes when she pulled the trigger. It was somehow important that he knew who was killing him and why.

Jacob's slow crawl had her thinking about the young next door neighbor Tawny, who couldn't seem to grasp why Kirsty was so mad at her. After all, it was her crummy husband who couldn't keep it in his pants – so she said.

Kirsty's baby boy's teetering, unsteady walk made her think of Sage. Kirsty sat in her office for a few hours waiting for the massage therapist to come into work. She wasted no time opening the box.

"I'm not actually here for a massage," Kirsty told the woman as she took in her features. Young, beautiful, nice breasts … of course her husband hadn't been able to resist. Though she's pretty sure Trevor's only requirement to fuck was a pulse.

"My name is Kirsty. Kirsty Gooden," it was the last time she referred to herself by her married name. "You know my husband from all the times he put his cock inside of you," she grabbed an ice pick sitting in a bucket of half melted ice, "it's only fair that I get to thrust something into you, too."

Sage didn't have time to properly register fear before Kirsty shoved the ice pick into her brain. It was perhaps the most brutal of the murders, but it was also was the most merciful. It was quick and painless, and Xipe Totec looked somewhat disappointed by her efficiency.

Jacob's first word was, "Mama."

That truly blissful moment when she realized her child spoke to her was ruined with the memory of Trevor.

The gun's bang was loud in her ears in the enclosed space inside of Trevor's old Volvo. It had left her ears ringing for days.

When Kirsty shot her husband in the head, she had no plans to outlive him. The danger of being in an uncontrolled vehicle was perfect because she wanted to die with him. She wore her wedding ring with every intention of dying in the car accident that she was sure to cause by shooting him in the head unexpectedly while he was driving.

Part of Kirsty still wishes that she had died that day; that she had been trapped in the car, unable to get out of her seat belt and after a few moments of struggling to breathe … all that was left was bliss.

She had nothing else to live for.

It's not the same now, but somehow she knows her time is limited.

It won't stop.

She knows it won't stop.

The demon won't stop, because he wants her.

Anyone she tries to love will be tangled in the lament configuration's web with her.

She doesn't want that for Jacob. Right now he is a beautiful, pure soul. Life had taught Kirsty the cruel lesson that even the most innocent of souls could one day be the most corrupt; all she has to do as a reminder is look in the nearest mirror.

End. Part III, "My Sweet Lord."


	4. Metal Heart

Part IV, "Metal Heart'

A/N: If you are reading, please review. I'm not sure anyone is still interested in this. It would be lovely to know otherwise. I understand that the Hellraiser fandom is a small community. But c'mon, please give me some love! This chapter is a little naughty.

-  
"I wish I had a metal heart. I could cross the line," ~ Garbage, "Metal Heart."

…

The sound of a baby crying is loud in her ears. There is dread in the pit of her stomach, bile burning in the back of her throat. There is a body covered by a black satin sheet on a table in in her living room. Two large, black candles at least three feet in length sit on wrought iron candle holders, the wicks are lit but they don't burn the normal orange white of fire. Instead the flames are a deep blue, burning higher than she is tall.

It is clearly some kind of religious sacrifice.

That baby won't stop crying! Is it Jacob? She's scared for him.

Feathers the color of blood fall all around her like it's snowing inside the room.

Kirsty is dressed in a white t-shirt and a pair of jeans; she walks toward the table without fear for herself; her eyes are blackened with kohl, her flat ironed hair is curling up in the humidity of the room. She is not a teenager in this walking dream; she is the adult she is today. She is a thirty-seven year old single mother of one.

She stops walking when she's at the edge of the table, where feet jut out beneath the black sheet, her eyes widening with anticipation, beads of sweat dripping down the back of her neck.

The sheet doesn't bleed like in her dream from sixteen years ago, it just mocks her, urges her to pull it off of the body and see who is beneath. Is it her Uncle wearing her father's face? Is it a skinless Julia? It wants her to touch it, to feel the satin beneath her fingertips.

Feathers fall swirl gracefully around her, landing in her hair and momentarily obscuring her view.

There is movement beneath the sheet, something is twisting, grinding; something wants to be seen, wants it more than anything.

Kirsty pulls the sheet at the corner and with one fluid motion uncovers what's beneath.

The figure beneath it sits up and reveals itself to her.

The scream wanting to come out of her throat is stuck in place. She hopes she doesn't choke on it.

Staring back at Kirsty is Kirsty herself.

They look into each others eyes: dark brown meeting the charcoal stare of a demon wearing her face.

"What the fuck?!" Kirsty says, looking at herself in demon form.

Kirsty the cenobite is standing proud now, waiting for her human self to look upon all her glory. The cenobite is arrogant and powerful. Her very stance is that of a leader.

_The black priestess_, her subconscious reminds her.

Suddenly, she recognizes the sobs in the ambient noise ... the crying, it's her father mourning her. The sound rises in pitch until it is almost overwhelming. She wants to bring her hands up to her ears, but it seems silly in her current surroundings.

Kirsty stares at her cenobite double taking in everything about her. Every inch of her exposed alabaster flesh is covered in the pattern of the lament configuration. It is evident that this work of art has been carved into her flesh down to the smallest detail. Instead of being red with blood the carved wounds are blackened and the white of her skin looks as though it has been coated with gold dust to mimic the etchings on the box. Her hair is black and flows to a few inches beneath her shoulder blades, plaited in front; the two braids are twisted and interspersed with strands of what looks like dried flesh. Each of her ears is pierced with tiny chain links that follow the shell of her flesh from the top of her cartilage to the fleshy part of the lobe. Her lips are white tinged with blue. A small leather skirt just barely covers her as Leviathan wants to show off its very essence carved in its image. Her breasts are fully covered with a leather bra, but between them there is no sternum – all flesh and bone is gone, exposing a perfectly reinforced metal heart. The pulmonary arteries and veins are all covered in metal independent of the organ and the aorta, superior and inferior vena cava are all copper to distinguish them from the muscle. Directly in the center of the heart a small metal crank sticks out; on its very end there is a small wooden handle.

The demon wearing Kirsty's face brings her hand to the crank and twists it with her fingers, black, glossy nail polish glinting in the candle light as she winds. To human Kirsty's horror, the saccharine tune the box plays when opened is now playing from the demon's mechanical heart.

It is as though she has been transformed into the lament configuration itself.

Deer neer neer … deer neer … deer neer.

It even emits the small chimes and pink colored sperm shaped light particles that had her so under its thrall the first time she opened it. Yellow light flashes from within the cavity in her chest, a beacon around the metal heart blinking a message in Morse code that clearly translates to, "Open me."

Kirsty's aware that her jaw has dropped at the sights and sounds before her.

As the song continues to play, the pinned demon finally makes his appearance.

"This is a nightmare," Kirsty assures herself. "It's only a nightmare." Everything feels real to her, and she believes that it is happening somewhere; that she is somewhere in limbo, where something like this is actually happening.

"This is no nightmare," Xipe Totec states as he steadily moves closer to her. He turns his head, staring intently at Cenobite Kirsty, taking great care to not miss a single sign of conversion. His eyes are wide with awe. "She is magnificent," he tells Kirsty. "Unlike any that I have seen."

"She's just a figment of my imagination," Kirsty informs him. "This is just a dream."

"This is not a dream," the demon says, not unkindly, placing his hands on Kirsty's shoulders. Kirsty accepts his touch, trying not to lean into it. "This," he announces grandly, "is prophecy."

The pinned demon shoves her at her doppelganger, and Kirsty feels as though her entire world falls out from under her. There is fire and ice, and the stench of death. Demon Kirsty and Human Kirsty merge and before she realizes it, Kirsty is opening wide coal eyes and staring out from within her own monstrous form.

"Ahhh," she screams, but it comes out sounding pleasurable. For a moment she feels as though every inch of her flesh is on fire, but the feeling leaves her euphoric and she is suddenly a dark phoenix rising from the ashes of her pain.

The bell tolls ominously, but it rumbles through her like a prayer and she only wants to feed that feeling, give Leviathan all that she is and all that makes up the universe. Whatever it wants, whenever it wants.

"What is this?" she asks; her voice is slightly distorted, her tone more powerful and commanding than she is used to. Her blackened eyes take in every minute detail of this fabricated room in her mind's eye. Everything is highlighted with an ethereal glow, nothing more so than he is.

Light radiates from him, a strong blue that has her gravitating back into his orbit, a helpless planet Earth revolving around the Sun. Without it, everything within her will die.

Kirsty's finger tips itch to touch him. She is surrounded by dozens of chains hanging from the ceiling. They call to her like they are alive. They are serpents who wait for a master's call before they can strike. There is a slight tickle in her mind when she commands them to hook into their priest.

They strike fast, piercing the leather cassock he wears and removing it in less time than it takes to blink. He stands naked before her, unmoved by her alpha female display. Only one finely arched eyebrow shows his curiosity.

It is his turn to command the chains, and they strike with just as much vigor as before. She too, is left naked before him, revealing to him that she truly is a flesh schematic of the lament configuration. Even the smallest details lay in the webbing between her fingers, across her breasts and womanhood.

They kiss, the nail heads jutting out from his face scratching the flesh on hers, causing small sparks of desire to shoot through Kirsty with every drop of blood shed from the wounds.

"Put them away," she says breathlessly, speaking as though the nails embedded in his flesh are nothing more than decoration. It is true that if he wished he could make the nails burrow into his flesh like maggots or he could take them out one at a time until they no longer remained, but that was not appealing to him.

"I will not. In this form we are equals. I will spare you no moment of exquisite torture," he tells her, his hand moving to the nape of her neck where vertebrae is exposed; his fingers brush by them while moving in her hair and she shudders with unexpected pleasure that jolts through her.

Kirsty lets out a gasp as his fingers tighten in her hair. He pulls her head back painfully and lowers his mouth to the side of her neck. She feels his tongue, wet and cold against her mutilated skin and her flesh comes alive. It is like a flash of lightening has struck her, running through her body from the tip of his tongue traveling directly between her thighs.

"Fuck!" she says, not expecting the intensity of her desire. She brings her hand up to his face, grasping his flesh between the nails and holding him closer to her.

Xipe Totec brings his index finger of his right hand to her forehead where the Priapus emblem, the top part of the box that represents the forbidden pleasures of the flesh, is carved into her skin. Her skin is super sensitive to his touch, feeling the pattern his finger makes as it runs across her flesh as though he is burning it.

Heat coils inside her, her body super charged and humming to life. She moans as the armor around her heart constricts painfully, the thick nails holding it in place pushing deep into the organ.

She knows he's excited, his flesh ready for her. "Take me," she commands him. "Take me now."

The studded demon watches her heart intently as he continues to draw patterns across her flesh. She feels like a toy come to life, and he is tinkering, seeing what she is capable of. He brings up his other hand, tickling her flesh with more patterns, this time running down her ashen collar bone and over her exposed right breast, lingering to pinch a whitish blue nipple.

"I am in there," the demon says in Elliot Spencer's voice, referencing her heart. "I can feel it."

He is playing with her flesh and it is driving her insane with want.

"I am in there," he repeats, this time with his demon inflection. "I am so deep inside of you. I tainted you when your shields were down and when you reinforced your armor, I was already growing inside you like a malignant tumor."

Kirsty shuts him up with a kiss, rough but pleasurable.

Their bodies come together effortlessly, unable to resist the pull of one another. He continues to run patterns over her skin and her metal heart constricts and expands as her pleasure builds.

Their hips continue to do battle, smashing against one another as his flesh enters her repeatedly, furiously. It is angry, vicious sex, but she is all for it, her body feeling more alive than she can ever remember.

"Do you taste your destiny in the back of your throat most foul and alluring?" he asks her.

Her nails scratch down his back, tearing flesh with their sharpness and he moans, his head tilting back at the pleasure.

"This is _never_ going to happen," she tells him, "I won't let it."

"You have no choice!" he bellows, in time with a powerful thrust.

"Angh!" Kirsty grunts both at the display of power and the pleasure it incites.

Kirsty runs her fingers over his chest, digging her fingers mercilessly into the perfect flayed squares of flesh; it makes him roar unexpectedly, the action triggering her body to an orgasm that is both the most painful and the most pleasurable she has ever experienced. It seems to last forever, her flesh milking his for all he is worth. The cavern of her chest begins to steam as the metal of her heart turns red as though heated by fire. He continues to thrust, sneering at her as though he hates her, but she knows deep in her bones that it is not hate he feels for her.

The armor around her heart opens without warning, causing her to yelp in surprise. It exposes the beating muscle to his eyes. It is throbbing, a marvelous dark pink. It is studded like his head and face, full of deep, sharp nails placed in a grid pattern. He finishes inside of her, his seed pulsing deep within to the same rhythm as her heart beat and he brings his hands up cupping the organ reverently.

Kirsty watches him from heavy lidded eyes, her body exhausted and relishing in their dark afterglow. She is not sure what he is doing, but every touch from his hands only causes pleasure, despite her surreal dream like surroundings.

The demon's grip on her heart tightens, and without warning he rips it from its den, sending metal debris flying from her chest cavity, some of it embedding itself deep within his face and neck.

Startled, she lets out a pained groan. It is more emotional than physical. She looks on while her blood drips down his hands and arms, a thick red. He holds her heart up for her to see, impaled by dozens of nails. "Do you understand?" he asks her, holding her charcoal gaze with his own. "Do you see that I am inside you, always?"

Kirsty feels her eyes watering, tears leaking from the corner of her eyes. "I do," she says solemnly. The admission is heart wrenching. It is something she has been dealing with for years.

With great care he places her heart in its resting spot, allowing Leviathan's skills to reconnect it. The metal instantly covers it on its own, making it whole again, fortifying her.

"All the pitiful human souls that you walk among … were they afraid of the tiny human baby we created?" he asks, awaiting her answer and cocking his head slightly to the right. Her answers are important.

"No," she answers honestly.

"Then who were they afraid of, Kirsty? Who made their skin crawl? Who made them so terrified that they recited prayers and held their rosaries to their hearts and asked their God for protection?"

Her lower lip trembles with very real fear, realization suddenly achieved with crystal clarity. "It was me," she admits, plaintively, her voice small. "They were afraid of me."

...

Kirsty wakes up in her bed, covered in sweat, a sweet ache and the wetness of the demon's seed between her thighs. It was real. In another dimension it really happened, and the truth of it makes her heart ache.

Over the baby monitor, her son begins to wail. It reminds her of her father's sobbing at the beginning of her dream. Tears leak from the corners of her closed eyes.

Things will not end well for her.

End, Part IV, "Metal Heart."


	5. Lay My Burden Down

Warnings: I particularly don't like warnings. This is a dark fic. Dark things are alluded to. Dark deeds are done. Dark choices are made. This is the Hellraiser fandom, where the darkest of dark things happen. If you don't like dark fic, I'm not entirely sure how you made it to chapter five.

A/N: Here it is: the end of this fifteen thousand word journey. Originally, this was meant to be a three chapter fic. I am not sure why it demanded five chapters, but hey, I'm glad it did.

I am a fic puppy, please give me cookies and belly rubs and tell me what a good girl I am!

Nerd91 – I appreciate the advice. I agree, if you are a writer, you should be writing for yourself first. I definitely am! I love this fandom and I thank you for sharing your experiences with me. Please ignore my shameless begging for feedback here. I can't help it. It's a sickness! Plus, sorry for taking so long in getting back to you on that!

Et al: I do believe I have addressed all issues and thanked everyone with a signed username in private messages. My thanks to all those who have taken the time to read this story and leave me feedback. It is treasured. I have a deep, dark love of this fandom and I think it will fuel me for quite a while.

My sincerest thanks to LJ1983. Without you this story might not have grown from the kernel in my brain to the bucket of popcorn it is today. You have talked me through this and given me encouragement and feedback endlessly for which I am extremely grateful. You are a great friend. Thank you.

Part V, "Lay My Burden Down"

Time passes more quickly than Kirsty would like. It seems like she closes her eyes for a second and it is already Jacob's third birthday. He has a lot of little friends his age; he is exuberant, happy and polite. His blue eyes always shine with merriment. The boy doesn't have a single evil bone in his body. Though she is mollified that he is not evil, has been since he was born, she still keeps watch like the captain of a ship lost at sea always on guard for a beacon of light signaling land. Truly, he is her angel. He shares his toys and cookies even when he doesn't have to; he gives kisses to other children when they cry.

Sometimes Jacob stares off into space as though he is day dreaming, and she worries. Is his father contacting him? Sending him horrible messages and nightmares? Will his beautiful mind be corrupted by the puzzle box and all its horrors?

Kirsty shows him a picture of Elliot Spencer, the one she had sent to her through genealogy archives. He is in full uniform, the regal captain. It's the same picture she stole from Dr. Channard's creepy book of worship. She doesn't know what happened to the original. It's probably with that crazy journalist, Joey Summerskill, the one who wouldn't leave her alone until she threatened her with a restraining order and when that didn't work, bodily harm.

_I don't give a fuck about what happened in New York. Stay away from me. Stop contacting me or anything you think you saw won't compare to what you will see when I get through with you._

Things are still dark and weary in her world. Sleep is elusive and she has the dark circles beneath her eyes to prove it. The only time she gets sleep is when she is medicated and the demon is never far from her, seemingly always ready to interact – to tease and torment her the moment she shuts her eyes.

Sometimes he wears Elliot's face and he tells her he loves her and that he loves their son. He makes love to her in his dimension, slowly, gently and then his skin pales, becomes gridded and pins appear and he laughs at her from deep in his gut, contempt for her idyllic captain dream lover clear in his eyes. He doesn't want to share her … not even with himself.

At first Kirsty wasn't sure why he was showing up as Elliot at all. It is not Elliot that she is so darkly attracted to. However, Elliot does represent a lot of different things. He is safe and normal; he is human. It doesn't matter that he has been dead for over a century. He is the epitome of all the things she should want. She should want the man and not the beast.

It is in one of these lighter dreams manufactured by her mind that the demon known as Pinhead creeps in with an opinion. A frozen Elliot Spencer in full military uniform is on one knee holding a small box with a sparkling diamond in it toward Kirsty, clearly asking her to marry him. She is overjoyed, caught in a web of illusion and desire in the place where unconscious truths are exposed. Here she is a victim to her own subconscious wants that are coupled with the harsh force of society's views.

Kirsty will never get married again; she will never have the comfort of normalcy.

Instantly, she knows that Elliot is the false image by seeing the powerful demon gracefully walk into her dream, perverting its simplicity.

It is the equivalent of being woken up with a bucket of ice water.

The smile on her face, produced by a figment of her imagination, instantly turns into a frown as she truly inhabits her dream self.

"Your fantasies of my weaker half are amusing," he says, deliberately cruel, arching an eyebrow so minutely had she not been studying him she would have missed it. He touches her face, pinching her cheeks together with one hand, painfully squeezing her flesh together until the right side of her mouth touches the left side of her mouth on the inside. "I wish to peel the skin from your face and have you pleasure me with your mouth while it is still round and open with shock."

The demon is always crueler after an Elliot Spencer moment. He lets go of her face abruptly, and she backs away on unsteady feet.

"Fuck!" Kirsty exclaims, hissing with pain.

What is he going to say to her other than something cruel? Is he going to profess his undying love? Not likely, but she knows … there is something there despite the fact that he is a demon. There is emotion there for her beneath the surface.

Feeling brave, Kirsty snipes, "You need to work on your pillow talk."

There is no way to tell if he takes offense to her words as his features are as inscrutable as ever. "You are mine," he says simply, his voice resonating through her.

"It will not be long now before you suffer well."

The next morning there are fingertip shaped bruises on both of her cheeks, and she thinks perhaps she has become too comfortable with him like a tiger trainer who forgets the simple fact that the animal so adored is actually wild.

She should keep her mouth firmly shut before he makes his fantasies reality.

Jacob notices right away, once he fully wipes the sleep from his eyes; his blue orbs are laser like as they hone in on the bruises on his mother's cheeks.

"Mama, owie!" he exclaims, touching her flesh in that super gentle way that only children seem capable of.

She smiles wide despite the slight pain, clasping his hands with her own and bestowing exaggerated kisses on them. "It's okay, baby. Mama's fine."

Jacob giggles before asking, "Daddy made Mama's owie?"

His sweet, inquisitive tone makes Kirsty feel slightly nauseous. What the Hell? Why would he ask that? Fear colors Kirsty's voice when she narrows her eyes and asks her three-year-old son, "What do you know about Daddy?"

She has never mentioned the "daddy" word. Yes, she showed him a picture of Elliot Spencer but even then she never made a connection with him being Jacob's father. She never told him that was his daddy. She didn't want him to grow up and wonder how it was possible that he had been fathered by a man who died in 1921.

"Daddy made Mama's owie?" Jacob asks again.

"Baby, don't worry. Daddy won't hurt Mama," she says in an attempt to relieve his fears.

Jacob's blue eyes well with tears, he swipes at them with his hands. He leans in to hug her smelling of baby shampoo and laundry detergent, welcomed in the cradle of her arms. "Yes, he will," he sobs. "Yes, he will!"

A chill runs down her spine. Kirsty hears the pinned demon loud and clear in her mind. "It is only a matter of time."

* * *

While her child sleeps peacefully in his bed, when he's at preschool, Kirsty is haunted by her past. No matter what she does, she can't get the sound of Gwen's screaming or Sage's empty stare after death out of her mind. Even Bret surfaces sometimes with his boyish face and splattered brains. Worse, there is Vincent with his strange hopeful bargain and his big shiny knife.

The box calls to her. _He_ calls to her. After things with her father, Kirsty had gone to desperate measures trying to get away from the things her eyes had been opened to.

She didn't have many friends … she never did. She's a loner and prefers it that way.

People in her life seem to meet a nasty end.

Of course, she still has a bitter, 59 year-old aunt that is somehow still breathing. She was Larry and Frank Cotton's much despised and revered half-sister. Despised by Larry and revered by Frank. It was Kirsty's aunt whose house she went to live in after the Channard Institute in order to get back on her feet.

It was her aunt who repeatedly inferred that Kirsty was of loose moral fiber and had far too many men in her bed for such a short amount of time on the planet. Of course, it was her aunt who Kirsty went to at the tender age of fifteen with blood and Uncle Frank's semen on the insides of her thighs with a tale of pedophilia horror. It was her aunt who saw the bruises on Kirsty's ribs and breasts; who saw that her lips were swollen and surrounded with finger shaped bruises made by a hand held so tight over her face to keep her quiet that it almost suffocated her. It was her aunt, who after surveying the damage and declaring, "You'll live" who slapped her across the face and told her to stop acting like such a slut around her sweet 23 year-old brother Frank, who literally could do no wrong.

"Stop tempting him with those pert young breasts of yours!" her aunt admonished, before calling her father to tell him she was keeping her niece for a little longer than the weekend that was planned; her father, newly married, was happy for the extra time alone with his beautiful, young wife. He had no idea that the extra time was added on only to make sure the bruises faded before Kirsty was returned to him.

Kirsty loathes her bitch-aunt like no one else on the planet. Only she has no one else left who remembers her father, who remembers his evil second wife. So despite sometimes thinking about suffocating the lady with a pillow, Kirsty visits her from time to time at her posh apartment.

"Where's my Jakie?" Victoria Cotton asks her features more wrinkled for her age than most due to her lifelong addiction to cigarettes, her blue eyes cold toward Kirsty but warm toward her son.

The woman always did have an innate hatred toward other women.

"Auntie!" Jacob squeals, hugging his only remaining family. He hugs her carefully, making sure not to disrupt the tubes to her oxygen tank.

Over his head, Victoria says to Kirsty in her hoarse, distorted voice, "Surprised you don't have a horde of multicolored children running around with the way you used to be."

Kirsty doesn't reply to the insult, instead saying, "I miss my dad."

"Hah," Victoria nods her head, "Single mom, widowed by a serial killer husband, a baby with questionable DNA. I somehow doubt he would be proud," she says, then lets out a hacking cough. Despite her Emphysema and dangerous oxygen tank, Victoria still smokes as often as she can under the nose of the property manager and at the risk of everyone in it. She knows better than to try and light one while Kirsty is there. Kirsty is not above slapping it out of her hand.

"Not to mention that jack ass of a husband of yours slept with anything with a pulse, and you let him. You always were weak with men. You should have just married your father like you wished in that little girl head of yours. Your Electra Complex was disgusting to watch."

"I didn't come here for this and you won't talk to me so rudely in front of my son," Kirsty says, narrowing her eyes at her aunt. It doesn't take very long before she remembers why she hates her.

"Oooh," Victoria says mockingly. "What are you going to do? Kill me? I wish," she says, another coughing fit momentarily overwhelming her.

_What are you going to do?_ Kirsty hears her Uncle Frank's voice replaying in her mind with her Aunt's unfortunate word choice. _What will you do?_

"Me too," Kirsty remarks before she can stop herself. She does want to kill her viciously and unapologetic, without remorse or regret.

"Grandpa Larry would have loved you to pieces, Tiger," Victoria tells Jake, unaware of the dark turn of thoughts running through Kirsty's head.

"Can you tell me about my daddy?" Jake says, and Kirsty freezes.

With the opportunity in her face, Victoria can't let it pass and says, "I would sweetie, but like your mother, I don't know who he is."

Okay, she crossed a line. "All right, good-bye," Kirsty says, collecting her son. "This is the last time we're visiting. Have a nice life in the time you have left."

"You too, Kirsty." Victoria unhooks the oxygen tank and says seriously, "It's coming for you, you know … the darkness."

"You're being absurd," Kirsty states warily.

"No. I'm on the cusp, _Princess_. I'm hovering between life and death. I can feel it my bones. Can't you?"

Kirsty bristles at the pet name. Only her father was allowed to call her Princess. The name should have died with him. "I don't know what you're talking about," Kirsty says, refusing to acknowledge the woman's words.

"Same thing that took my brother, Larry's unscrupulous bitch … is going to take you and you know what?" Victoria's eyes are finally warm for her. "You won't be weak anymore."

There is almost a sort of respect beaming out of the older woman's eyes and Kirsty finds that she hates it, she absolutely hates it. It confirms what Kirsty knew all along, that her Aunt is evil … Uncle Frank was evil … but then what did that say about Kirsty herself being from the same rotten family tree?

"I've never been weak," Kirsty says, holding Jacob's hand and maneuvering him out of the room and out of his great-aunt's life forever.

The death rattle of Victoria's laugh, offered up through blackened, diseased lungs, disturbs Kirsty for the rest of the day.

* * *

It's a beautiful day. Jake has fun at the park all afternoon, his face wide with a smile that is infectious. He never notices the heavy tension that exists between Kirsty and the other children's mothers. They won't sit with her, they won't talk to her, and for all intents and purposes it's like Kirsty doesn't exist to them at all. She never lets it stop her from going to the neighborhood park. She won't allow her son to be ostracized with her, and thankfully the spiteful hate group of women in their early 20s doesn't extend their dislike of her to her son. They treat him like all the other children at the park and allow their own children to play with him. For that, Kirsty is grateful.

"I had a dream about you last night," one woman says, sitting next to Kirsty on a bench painted all the colors of the rainbow. Kirsty remembers her from their one and only moment of speaking together: an introduction. Her name is Maggie, she's 23 years-old and she has two sons, Michael and Zachary.

"Oh really?" Kirsty asks one eyebrow raising, unsure of what the woman is implying. Hopefully, it wasn't a sex dream.

"You were ... covered in symbols. Your eyes were black. You … you were with this guy with pins in his head and there was so much pain." Maggie's eyes fill with tears, but she doesn't shed them. "Despite that there was this strange love between the two of you. Despite it being a nightmare," the woman confides, "it was kind of beautiful."

Alarmed, Kirsty says nothing for a moment. "Uh, thanks?" she offers to the young woman, her tone making it apparent that she wasn't sure that she should be thanking her at all.

"I'm sorry we haven't been nicer," the woman says, gesturing with her head to the group of women sitting on benches on the other side of the park. "We're kind of afraid of you."

"I know," Kirsty says, "It's okay." After a beat, Kirsty adds, "Thank you for being nice to my son."

"He's a beautiful soul," Maggie tells her.

"He is," Kirsty agrees, her eyes warm with love for her son, for the wonderful person she knows he will grow up to be.

It is a strange meeting, one that leaves Kirsty feeling good and bad. Is the demon invading everyone's dreams now? Is he just hanging around giving people she interacts with during the day nightmares? Is it a sign of things to come? A true prophecy that touches any sensitive person she comes into contact with?

She's not sure that she wants to know.

When it's close to dinner time, Kirsty takes Jacob's hand and starts to walk home.  
Maggie checks to make sure no else is looking, and waves a tentative good-bye to her which Kirsty returns unaware of its true significance.

After dinner, Kirsty sets Jacob up at the living room table. She covers it in plastic and sets out a plethora of finger paint colors and crisp sheets of white paper. Jacob loves to paint, and she finds it occupies him while she goes about her nightly ritual of tidying up the house.

Assuring her son that whatever masterpiece he creates will find its way to the refrigerator door, she kisses the top of his head and makes her way to the kitchen to clean.

Kirsty is elbow deep in sudsy dish water when she hears the sound of an ominous bell toll. She furrows her brow, hoping that she is hearing things.

The bell tolls again, and she freezes in place like a deer in headlights when she feels a whipping breeze around her. The sound of breaking glass from various light bulbs in her living room has her rushing out of her stupor. The dish in her hand slips and falls back into the sink, shattering into pieces underwater. A piece of porcelain cuts her hand deeply, but she doesn't even notice it. She doesn't bother turning the water off or getting a bandage to stop the bleeding.

There is a sound that keeps repeating, a scratched vinyl record ripped by the needle. It is not a sound that is recent that you would hear just anywhere. Then there is static, over and over again combining with a hodgepodge of frequencies all upset by a dimensional schism recently opened.

Quickly, Kirsty makes her way into her living room leaving a trail of blood only to find it devoid of her son.

"Jacob?" she cries, a desperate edge to her voice.

The eggshell wall of her living room is cracked; a long corridor leading into Hell is her only answer to her son's whereabouts. The room is covered with fog, and she is chilled to the bone.

Kirsty doesn't hesitate. She walks right in, not even batting an eye at the brick walls on either side of her or the dozens of cobwebs that linger on them. The sound of a baby crying is loud in her ears and she feels a sense of déjà vu. She has definitely been here before, but eighteen years previously the baby crying was not hers. She had no way of knowing in the past as she moved forward in only a hospital gown, her bare feet padding audibly on the stone beneath them, that it was her destiny to do so. She had no idea then that all roads were leading home. Right now she is wearing grey yoga pants and a comfortable white tank top, her feet are bare and she can hear them as she walks like she did then, the soft noise so loud in the cavernous tunnel.

There is no beast chasing her through the corridors now, no running escape into the hospital room she started in and no static charges from a box she opened. There is no runaway uncle or a treacherous husband and his circle of sluts to offer.

Mirrors appear on either side of her and in them are Trevor, Gwen, Tawny, Bret, Sage and Vincent; they are silent judges who watch her intently as she continues to move forward. They are interrupted by her father, whose face inhabits each glass panel, overtaking their images completely. "Wait, I thought you were going to stay with us for a while?" he says, over and over again.

"Jacob?!" Kirsty cries, ignoring the beloved sound of her father's voice as it is used to mock her. The winding corridors of the labyrinth bring her right back to her own living room. It is the same and yet somehow completely different.

In the middle of the room the demon stands holding Jacob in his arms. Jacob's green and purple paint smeared hands are on the box, still drawing patterns on its etched surface. Kirsty's heart is in her throat.

"Jacob, what have you done?" she asks sharply, her voice trembling with fear. "What have you done?!"

If her son feels any kind of fear toward the demon he certainly isn't showing it, he only stares at her as though he is confused by her anguish. "Mama?" he asks, his tone hesitant because he doesn't know if he is in trouble or not.

There is a sudden absence of noise as the environment settles.

"How did he get a hold of the box? It was locked tight," she says, her fear settling as a ball of dread that sits in her belly, heavy and undeniable.

The puzzle box was locked in a gun safe in her upstairs closet. The key to that safe was tucked securely away in a bible that rested in a drawer in a living room end table.

"A mother's crime is that she sometimes looks away, blind to the mischief in her child's eyes," the demon states calmly.

She gulps before stating, "You can't take him. He can't possibly have any," she looks around at his ever present lackeys lurking in the shadows, "desires!" Only her mind is showing her the chattering one, just a boy, speared to pillar of flesh and sharp things stuck in an endless circle.

"You are mistaken. There was desire, a desire that you are most familiar with. The desire to _run to daddy_," the demon looks upon the innocent face of the boy in his arms, not reacting when the child moves his paint spattered hands to hover over the pins on his face and head, gently gliding against them with his fingertips.

"Okay, Mama. It's okay," Jacob assures her, because he has no idea that it is most definitely _not okay_. Not okay at all.

"You can't take him, please," Kirsty begs, not above it in this instance.

_Please. Go away and leave me alone!_

_Wait, please, wait!_

"Please?!" the demon scoffs. "Please," the word rolls off his tongue like a bad taste. "Do you not see the sacrifices I have made for you, woman?!" The more he bellows, the more scared Jacob becomes. The little boy holds his arms out to Kirsty, wanting nothing more than to be in his mother's safe embrace, but the demon will have none of it. "Do you not see the patience I have shown, the temperance? I have given you that which I have never given any. I have given you years of breath in your lungs and blood pumping through your veins. I have given you the gift of words exchanged when others open the box and are viciously taken, not a word spoken or a breath exhaled the only pleas I hear as thoughts in their heads. If you want our flesh to live on then you know the price." He moves closer to her, close enough to touch her. "Are you willing pay?"

Kirsty closes her eyes, her clever mind clearly looking for a way out, but she knows – this is checkmate. The game is over and it is a game that she was never meant to win.

The demon turns his back to her with their son taking her silence as denial, intent on making his way back to his home with their child.

"Wait!" she cries at the last possible moment. "Please, wait," she begs, her brown eyes open wide, the choice she is making all too clear to her, "take me instead of him. It's me you want."

Part of her knows. She knows that somehow this was his plan all along. Just as he baited Trevor with his lust and greed, his machinations easily pulled her strings to make her react exactly as he wanted, to open the box regardless of the ramifications.

The demon knows her weakness and it is _love_.

The betrayal of that love by Trevor pushed her over, made that fucking box as appealing as a loaded gun and the pain was so unbearable in her heart that she wanted to put it to her head and pull the trigger.

When she opened the box, she wanted to die … she was ready. Until she looked upon the world she stepped into and remembered why she was so terrified of it in the first place. She has no choice, no way out. She loves Jacob with every fiber of her being; an innocent love of a mother and child.

She's made a choice to save her child by killing herself.

"Very well, Kirsty," he says a wicked gleam in his eyes, speaking in his own voice, no crisp, English Elliot tone to comfort her, "I accept."

A plan that had taken years to execute had finally come to fruition. The demon is more than pleased beneath his unfathomable expression, but she will only come to know it in the decades and centuries to follow.

Kirsty does not want to leave her son. "He'll be okay?" she questions, knowing if there is one thing the demon is not, it's a liar.

The demon nods his head slightly, placing Jacob in her arms.

The little boy kisses his mother's cheek, seemingly aware that it will be the last time he ever does so. "No burdens," she whispers to him, hoping upon hope that it is true and his life will be as burden free as possible.

Kirsty hugs him tight then places him gently on the living room floor.

A knock on Kirsty's door startles her. "Kirsty? It's Dorothy. I just had a bad feeling. Are you okay?"

The old woman uses her key to get into the home and scoops Jacob off the floor. "Kirsty?"

The little boy buries his head in the woman's shoulder and starts to cry. "Mama! Mama!" he sobs, inconsolable.

Kirsty squares her shoulders as her son cries. She can only be strong here. There is no room for weakness.

"She cannot see us," the demon reveals. "You know this."

"Where is your mother?" Dorothy asks, stopping where Kirsty stands, unbeknownst to her. There is a puddle of blood there, from Kirsty's hand. "Oh, God. Oh, God! I have to call the police!"

They will think Kirsty has been abducted. They will assume that her previous bad boyfriend came for her, finally collecting on a violent promise. It is not too far from the truth. The water is still running in her kitchen sink. There is a puddle of blood on the living room floor which when tested will prove to be Kirsty's. There is an open window in her bedroom – they will say that is where he came in, why there was no sign of forced entry.

Jacob will be safe with his Aunt Tiffany, who never had a single shred of desire of her own to open the puzzle box, who will steer Jacob Cotton as far away from the lament configuration as he can possibly get while raising him as her own. Kirsty implicitly trusts Tiffany to do right by her son. All of her money, the house, everything … will go to Tiffany and Jacob. If there was one thing Kirsty knew to do all those years ago it was to have her affairs in order.

Kirsty ignores the frantic 911 phone call that Dorothy is in the middle of, in favor of watching the demon gesture grandly with his hand, offering it out for her take with her own. She watches it as though it is in slow motion. To him, this is as close to asking for something as he possibly gets.

_This is it_, Kirsty thinks. It was time to lay her burden down. "Time to play?" she asks, her hand reaching for his. She is strangely proud of the fact that her hand isn't shaking with fear.

She should be afraid.

Being afraid would be normal.

Instead, she feels a sense of completeness, a sense of belonging.

It's her destiny fulfilled.

The demon's hand is cold but nonetheless inviting when he grabs a hold of her outstretched fingers possessively, urging her to stand by his side where she belongs.

There is a small touch of wonder in his voice overshadowed by smugness when he affirms, "Time to play."

The End.


End file.
